Eastern Europe Boxing update!

By Alexey Sukachev

The leading Ukrainian promotional group K2 East Promotions will stage its sixth pugilistic event this year on July 18 in Odessa, a huge seaport on the northern shore of the Black Sea. The show, billed as the “Champions’ Summer”, was presented this Tuesday by the head of K2 East (and the WBC heavyweight champion at the same time) Vitaly Klitschko. The main event will see Kiev-based Georgian Avtandil Khurtsidze (18-1-2, 11 KOs), 25, defending his WBA Intercontinental middleweight title for the third time against hard-nosed Belgian Jamel “Elegant” Bakhi (19-2-2, 5 KOs), four years his senior. Stocky (5’4’’) aggressive puncher Khurtsidze is ranked #4 by the WBA in his weight class.

In the co-feature bout of the night, highly ranked (WBA #2, WBO #7, IBF #12 and WBC #14) light heavyweight Vyacheslav Uzelkov (20-0, 12 KOs) will step into the ring against Romanian journeyman Istvan Varga (14-7, 5 KOs) in a non-title ten-rounder. Uzelkov is best known for his sixth-round TKO over newly-crowned WBA champion Gabriel Campillo in 2007. “We are currently negotiating with Team Campillo to bring their pupil in Kiev against legitimate WBA official challenger later this year”, confirmed the elder of Klitschko brothers.

The huge Moscow card, promoted by German Titov, wasn’t the only boxing event on July 2 in Russia. “Jab Promotion”, ruled by Vitaly Supichenko and Alexander Yagupov, arranged a tiny boxing tournament at Gladiator fight club in Saint Petersburg on the very same date.

Welterweight Daniil Utenkov (6-0, 4 KOs) made an easy work of Uzbek Bakhtiyar Juraev (0-2-1), stopping him in the second round. Super middleweight Dmitry Sukhotsky (13-0, 8 KOs) celebrated his debut under Jab aegis with a single right counter to the solar plexus of Belarus Igor Filonov (8-11, 2 KOs) in the very first round of the scheduled six. Sukhotsky is a former Russian, TWBA and WBC CISBB champion in his weight class.

“I’m glad with his performance and with the whole tournament”, revealed Ygupov. “We are planning more sound events later this fall. Stay tuned!”

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Sergey Stepkin of Union Boxing Management and Alexander Kolesnikov will unite their efforts to stage a nice-looking local card tomorrow at Yunost sports arena in Klimovsk, Moscow Region. The reigning Baltic Boxing Union welterweight champion Roman Seliverstov (9-8, 2 KOs) will try to add another title to his growing resume, pitting against Sweden-based Ugandan Peter Semo (19-4, 14 KOs) for a vacant IBO Intercontinental belt in the same weight class. Seliverstov is a much better fighter than his record suggests with a one-sided victory over former world title challenger Michel Trabant in 2008.